Monday, July 09, 2012

Daniel L Simmons, BYU, Cox-2, Celebrex, Pfizer, and Lawsuit

Dr. Daniel L Simmons is my Mother-in-law's cousin. He teaches Biochemistry and P-Chem at BYU. I still have nightmares of those classes.

Anyways. Dr. Simmons sent clones of the Cox-2 genes to another researcher at another University who went behind his back and patented the discovery together with Montsanto. Monsanto all the while was telling BYU this sort of thing couldn't be patented.

As far as Vioxx and Celebrex are concerned. Vioxx is a very selective Cox-2 inhibiter and causes less GI bleeds but causes more heart attacks due to increased blood pressure vs ibuprofen. This is only significant when given to millions of people.

Celebrex doesn't cause as many BP problems because it really isn't that specific of a Cox-2 inhibitor compared to ibuprofen. The Celebrex study (CLASS study) cheated and stopped early at 6 months because at 1-year there was no measurable decrease in GI bleeding and ulcers vs diclofenac. Now for some people with bad arthritis, Celebrex may work better as an NSAID just because they happen to respond to it better than Motrin, Aleeve, Voltaren or Mobic. However, considering the cost. Its much cheaper and likely more effective to take Voltaren and a antacid then Celebrex alone.

I think there may be a silver lining to the fraud. It turns out that Cox-2 inhibition has not turned out not to be such a great thing. Selectively inhibiting Cox-2 may lead to less GI bleeds and ulcers, but it also leads to increases in BP and MI. Consequently, BYU should feel grateful it didn't share any of the bad press with Vioxx. But, on the other hand, now BYU has won a nice court settlement from Pfizer's Celebrex ($450 million) which isn't even a very good Cox-2. It's not the $9.7 billion they were initially going for but it's not bad.